Building Speed On The Guitar - A Commonly Overlooked Problem

By Lee Nicholas

Some guitarists have an uncanny ability to play incredibly fast in a reasonably short amount of time while others can struggle for what seems like an eternity, improving at a very slow pace with an ever decreasing likelihood of reaching high speeds on the guitar.

There are many reasons why this can be, anything from physical differences to bad posture, incorrect handling of the pick or just plain bad practice. Whatever the reason, there is often one common element that differentiates the two types of guitarist... Focus! Alternate picked straight sixteenth notes at 250bpm may be your goal because that's what your guitar idols can play at. You may have been struggling for years and still can't get past 120bpm? Now let's forget the numbers and think only about improvements in small steps.

If you are like many guitarists in this situation then the chances are your attention has been largely focused on that 250BPM goal. Now there's not necessarily anything wrong with that but unfortunately for most, that goal takes away too much attention from where you should be concentrating and that is just plain improvement at any level, no matter how small a degree.

Having long term goals are important but it's also important to keep things in perspective.
Getting from 120 to 250bpm is huge, it's a massive and long term achievement that requires a lot of concentrated, disciplined practice. If your current perfect speed is 120bpm and you are trying to reach 250bpm with most of your practice sessions having the metronome set at 200+ then you are never going to do it. You might improve to an extent but it will always be sloppy. If however you can play something with perfection at a given speed then there will always be headroom for further improvement from that current level. By setting your goals much smaller you will be always be pushing the boundaries upward with the necessary headroom to keep moving forward.

Getting from 120 to 125bpm is a very realistic goal. It's one that you can not only say you will definitely be able to reach but it's also one that you should be able to reach quite quickly. If you think that isn't a big improvement then you are approaching it with the wrong attitude. A 5bpm improvement has just moved the boundary. Do this ten times over a period of time and you have a 50bpm increase in speed.

When you are concentrating all of your efforts in these smaller increments it becomes a lot easier to spot flaws in your guitar technique. Most of the things that prevent a guitarist from being able to play fast are often small details causing bottlenecks. It might be that three fingers are working efficiently but the pinkie is holding everything else up. A common problem is also with synchronisation between the left and right hand. All of these things are much easier to correct at slower speeds, which allow you to home in and work on those specific problems.

Here's something to think about. There are thousands of amateur guitarists who already have the left and right hands well practiced and capable of a large speed increase. The only thing that's preventing this from happening is poor synchronisation. Yet, the only thing they have NOT spent any time focusing their attention on is synchronisation!

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